Research on beginning student teachers' motivations for becoming teachers has shown that they want to contribute to the lives of their students and to society; however, few of these studies have addressed beginning student teachers' views on what education is for in relation to the development of both their future students and society. To examine their motivations and ideals, we conducted a survey among 498 secondary student teachers of history and English language at three Dutch teacher education institutes. The student teachers entered a four-year bachelor programme. The results of the factors influencing teaching (FIT)-choice scale show that motivations representing social utility value were rated the highest. Regarding social development, the highest-rated ideals were autonomy and social commitment, and of the ideals focussed on qualification, subject matter knowledge was rated the highest. We found some differences in motivation between student teachers of history and those of the English language; for example, the former's subject matter motivation was higher than that of the latter. A correlational analysis revealed significant moderate correlations between motivations and educational ideals. In the discussion, we address the implications of our findings for teacher education.